Authors: Samantha Schutz
I can’t decide if I feel
like my body is hollow,
light like a balloon,
or if I feel like my bones
are filled with cement.
I can’t decide if I am going
to drift up off the pew, into the air,
and bump into the ceiling,
or if my weight will send me crashing
through the pew, then floor, then earth
and I won’t stop falling
until I am deep underground
like Brian is about to be.
and look over at the casket again.
The box is smaller
than I thought it would be.
I want to lie down next to it
to measure.
I look at the podium
and see people speaking.
I see kids my age,
some adults, and a woman
I assume is Brian’s mother.
I see their mouths move,
but there is no sound.
It is a silent movie.
that I sort of met Brian’s dad
didn’t go how I’d hoped it would.
“Shit,” Brian said
as he looked out his bedroom window.
This was several weeks ago.
“He wasn’t supposed to be home
for another hour.
You need to go.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
He handed me my bag.
I had never met either of Brian’s parents.
He usually ushered me out
before they got home.
I didn’t understand why.
Brian was always talking about
staying out all night.
Surely if his parents could handle that,
they wouldn’t mind
him having a girl in his room.
But maybe they weren’t the problem.
Maybe he was ashamed of me.
I took my bag from Brian,
put on my sneakers,
and followed him down the stairs.
I thought
maybe this made us even.
Brian had never met my mom either.
As we walked past the living room
and to the front door,
I caught a glimpse
of Brian’s dad on the couch.
His necktie was loosened,
he had a beer in one hand,
and the TV remote in the other.
He didn’t even look up
as we walked by.
There was a moment
of awkward silence
as I stood on the stoop with Brian.
I filled it with
“So, that’s the man
who made you?”
“He
didn’t
make
me.”
I bit my lip.
I had never heard Brian
speak in that tone before.
He said good-bye,
then shut the door.
Maybe it wasn’t me
he was ashamed of.
Marissa is lightly pulling me
up and toward the door.
People are filing out,
hugging, touching.
I hardly recognize anyone.
I wish there were more people
who knew me here.
That way they could hold me too,
stroke my hair
and tell me they know
how much it hurts.
But there isn’t anyone
besides Marissa.
the summer sun is blinding.
The insides of the church
were white and cool.
Now everything is painfully bright.
The blue sky, green grass,
and yellow sun are like jewels.
But then I see
all those flat gray stones.
We all parade to the spot
that’s been dug for Brian.
The ground is uneven
and it’s hard to stand.
But maybe that’s just me.
We are each given a single white rose
and then the priest starts up again.
But I’m not listening.
I’m staring at the rose, thinking,
How long before
this flower starts to wilt?
How long before Brian starts to…
I look away.
I shouldn’t think
these things.
Brian’s mom is wailing.
She can barely support
her own weight.
It’s like she has no bones.
Brian’s dad is at her side,
trying to support her.
That’s when I notice
that he and Brian
have the same cloudy blue eyes.
There are loads of kids here.
Most are huddled together,
holding hands,
sniffling, crying.
I always wanted
to hang out with Brian’s friends,
to have him introduce me
as his girlfriend.
But neither of those things ever happened.
And now there’s no one
to introduce me.
No one
to confirm the way that I knew Brian.
It’s like I,
we,
didn’t exist.
reciting prayers, he says,
“And now, Brian’s best friend, Peter,
would like to say a few additional words.”
Peter steps forward.
He is holding a piece of paper.
I look to see if his hand shakes.
It doesn’t.
“This is a poem by Henry Scott Holland.
‘Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effort.
Without the ghost of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner.
All is well.’”
That is it.
That is where he stops.
After everyone tosses their rose
into Brian’s grave
we begin to walk away.
Marissa gives my arm a little squeeze
and asks, “Do you want to go
to the after-thing?
It’s at Brian’s house.”
Brian is one.
I am another.
But Brian is all over this house.
There are photos.
There are memories of him
that are collectively shared
by friends and family.
I am a different kind of ghost.
There are no traces of me here
except for my fingerprints.
Brian was the only other person
who shared my memories here.
And now that he’s gone,
I am their sole keeper.
and an older woman sits down next to me.
She’s got the same cloudy blue eyes
as Brian and his dad.
She turns to me and extends her hand.
“I’m Freda, Brian’s grandmother.”
“Annaleah,” I say as I take her hand.
Her skin is transparent
like tracing paper, but soft and warm.
Mountainous veins ridge her hand.
“You all are too young for this,”
she says, then sips her water.
“When I lost Joey, my husband,
there was warning.
He was sick. Old.
But Brian.
So sudden. So sudden.”
She sips again.
“Did you and Brian go to school together?”
“No. I—We—”
I can’t even begin to explain,
but her eyes seem to understand.
Could Brian have told her about me?
She slides her hand over mine.
Strokes it.
It feels so different
from Marissa’s.
Marissa’s hand is firm.
This hand is light.
It slides over mine like silk.
All I can see is his back.
He’s got a cigarette in one hand,
a beer in the other,
and a lot of empties at his feet.
Brian’s dad didn’t speak at the funeral,
and I haven’t seen or heard him talking
to anyone this afternoon.
And since I always called Brian on his cell,
I’ve never even heard his dad’s voice.
Maybe he doesn’t have one.
I want to sit on Brian’s bed and pretend
that it’s four o’clock after school.
Brian’s windows are open
and the late spring breeze
makes the curtains expand
and contract.
His mom is working late
and his dad won’t be home
for a few hours.
We are both sitting on his bed,
but on opposite ends.
We are listening to music.
Brian is drawing in his sketchbook.
I am writing in my English journal,
but I don’t let him look
since it’s about him.
He comes closer to my end of the bed,
tries to see what I’m writing.
I swat him away,
close the covers,
and slip the book back in my bag.
He smiles and leans in toward me.
A chunk of hair falls over his left eye.
His lips touch mine.
His hands are on my face,
then my neck,
my shoulders,
my chest.
Buttons are undone.
I am undone.
for the right time
for a long time.
I had been waiting
for romance,
for candles,
for rose petals.
But when the time came,
I hadn’t even shaved my legs,
and I wasn’t wearing fancy underwear.
It just happened.
After weeks of saying no,
I said yes.
I thought that afterward
I would cry
or do something dramatic.
I thought
I would feel different,
but I didn’t.
It was everything around me
that felt different.
As I walked home
from Brian’s that afternoon,
I suddenly felt connected
to the birds, to the trees,
to the people around me.
I felt a part of everything.
Marissa and I have only spoken twice
in the last few weeks.
The first conversation,
the one that deepened
the already growing rift,
went like this:
“You did what?” she asked.
“We did it,” I said.
“Is he even your boyfriend?”
“Not exactly.”
“Did he say ‘I love you?’”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“How do you feel?”
“Okay.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Not really.”
“Well, at least that’s something.”
“Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like a bitch.
Can’t you just be happy for me?”
“All you do is complain
about Brian.
And now you have sex with him?
Good plan, Annaleah.
I don’t want to hear about it
when you start freaking out.
Because if you do,
it’ll be your own fault.”
“I can’t believe you.
You don’t even know him.
You’re probably just jealous
that I had sex and you didn’t.”
“Hardly, Annaleah.
Hardly.”
“Thanks for the support, Maris.”
all the details
of the last time Brian and I had sex.
I didn’t know
it would be the last time.
If I had,
I would have traced Brian’s face,
run my fingers over his eyelids,
nose, and mouth.
I would have connected
his freckles and beauty marks,
memorized them
like a star chart.
I would have ruffled his soft, dark hair,
run my hands over his chest and arms.
I would have held him
tightly—
measured the space
he took up in my arms.
I would have
nestled into his neck,
smelled him,
taken all of him in—
enough to make it last
my whole life.
stop thinking
that Brian and I
never
danced.
I don’t know why
it sticks out so much,
but it does.